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DANIEL WEBSTER 



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AT NIBLO'S SALOON, IN NEW-YORK, 



ON THE 15th MARCH, 1337. 



NEW-YORK: 

PRINTED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, 82 CLIFF-ST. 



183 7. 



r ^' s P E E 

r, ■ -.^^ \ ^- 

^% e^ ^ DELIVERED BY 






DANIEL WEBS T :^ R 

AT NIBLO'S SALOON, IN NEW-YORK, , ,. ^» 

ON THE 15th MARCH, 1837. "^'' 



The proceedings and correspondence which preceded the delivery of 
the speech now published are as follows : — 

At a meeting of the political friends of the Hon. Daniel Webster, 
held at Euterpian Hall, in the city of New- York, on Tuesday evening, 
the 21st Febraary, 1837, James Kent was called to the chair, and 
Hiram Ketchum and Gabriel P. Dissosway were appointed secretaries. 

The object of the meeting having been explained, the following 
resolutions were, on motion, duly seconded and unanimously adopted. 

Resolved, That this meeting has heard with deep concern of the in- 
tention of the Hon. Daniel Webster to resign his seat in the Senate of 
the United States at the close of the present session of Congress, or 
early in the next session. 

Resolved, That while we regret the resignation of Mr. Webster, it 
would be most unreasonable to censure the exercise of his right to seek 
repose, after fourteen years of unremitted, zealous, and highly distin- 
guished labours in the Congress of the United States ; but we indulge 
the hope that the nation will, at no distant day, again profit by his ripe 
experience as a statesman and his extensive knowledge of public affairs, 
by his wisdom in council and his eloquence in debate. 

Resolved, That in the judgment of this meeting there is none among 
the living or the dead who has given to the country more just or able 
exposition of the Constitution of the United States ; none who has en- 
forced, with more lucid and impassioned eloquence, the necessity and 
importance of the preservation of the Union, or exhibited more zeal or 
ability in defending the Constitution from foes without the government 
and foes within it, than Daniel Webster. 

Resolved, That there is no part of our widely-extended country mo^'e 
deeply interested in the preservation of the Union than the city of 
New -York ; her motto should be " Union and Liberty, now and for ever, 



yy ^ ;^^ 






iWe,' ...... , . ^iv. ..ude shoulil be shown to the slales- 

"gave utterance to'tliis sentiment, 
/ed, That David B. Ogden, Peter Stagg, JonathaB^Tliompson, 
s Brown, Phili^Mflpe, Samuel Stevens, Robert Smith, Joseph 
dcker, Peter (^mufj^ir Kg^t Benson, Hugh Maxwell, Peter A. Jay, 
Aaron Clark, ^ra B. Wh.<k.i-^ William W.<'todd, S'^th Grosvenor, 
Sin)fioi\I)«3per, Jr., Wm. Aspinwall, Nathaniel Weed, Jonathan Good 
hu'^f'^^* tiarsiow, Hiram Kctchum, Gabrief. P. Dissosway, Henry K. 
B6gert, jJOTnes Kent, Wm. S. Johnson, and John W. Leavitt, Esqs., be 
a committee authorized and empowered to receive the Hon. Daniel 
Webster oirTiis return from Washington, and make known to him, in 
the form of an address or otherwise, the sentiments which this meet- 
ing, in common with the friends of the Union and the Constitution in 
t\iis city, entertain for the services which he has performed for the 
country ; that the committee correspond with Mr. Webster, and ascer- 
tain the time when his arrival may be expected, and give public notice 
of tlie same, together with the order of proceedings Avhich may be 
adopted under these resolutions. 

Resolved, That these resolutions, signed by the Chairman and Secre- 
taries, be published when the committee shall notify the public of the 
expected arrival of Mr. Webster. 

JAMES KENT, Chairman. 



Hiram Ketchum, ) Secretaries. 

Gabriel P. Dissosway, y 



New-York, March 1, 1837. 

Sir — It having been currently reported that you have signified your 
intention to resign your seat in the Senate of the United States, a num- 
ber of the friends of the Union and the Constitution in this city were 
convened on the evening of the 21st of last month, to devise measures 
whereby they might signify to you the sentiments which they, in com- 
mon with all the Whigs in this city, entertain for the eminent services 
you have rendered to the country. At a meeting the Hon. James Kent 
was called to the chair, and resolutions, a copy of which I enclose you, 
were adopted, not only with entire unanimity, but with a feeling of 
warm and hearty concurrence. On behalf of the committee appointed 
under one of these resolutions, I now have the honour to address you. 
It will be gratifying to the committee to learn from you at what time 
you expect to arrive in this city on your return to Massachusetts ; if in- 
formed of the time of your arrival, it will afford the committee pleasure 
to meet you, and, in behalf of the Whigs of New-York, to welcome you, 
and to present you, in a more extended form than the resolutions pre- 
sent, their views of your pubhc services. I am instructed by the com- 
mittee to say, that whether you shall choose to appear among us as a 
public man or as a private citizen, you will be warmly greeted by every 
sound friend of that Constitution for which you liave been so distin- 
guished a champion. Should your resolution to resign your seat in the 
Senate be rchnquished, you will, in the opinion of the committee, im- 
pose new obhgations upon the friends of the Union and the Constitution. 
1 have the honour to be, very truly. 

Your obedient servant, 

D. B. OGDEN. 

Hon. Daniel Webster, Washington. 



Washington, Marefeigll^'RS'?. 

My DBABySiR — I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt dl^uur 
letter of t'h<!f 2d instant, comnnniicnting the resolutions at a meeting of a 
number of gl&litieal friends in New-York. 

The character of these resolutions, a^ the kindng.ss of the senti- 
ments express^ in your letter, have filled me with unafccted gratitude. 

I feel, at the same time, how little deserving any political services of 
mine are of such commendation from such a source. To the. discharge 
of the duties of my public situation, sometimes both anxious and diffi- 
cult, I have devoted time and labour without reserve ; and lTave'hTa4e 
sacrifices of personal and private convenience not always unimportant. 
These, together witli integrity of purpose and fidelity, constitute, I am 
conscious, my only claim to the public regard : and for all these I find 
myself richly compensated by proofs of approbation such ■as your com- 
munication affords. 

My desire to relinquish my seat in the Senate for the two years still 
remaining of the term for which I was chosen, would have been car- 
ried into execution at the close of the present session of the Senate, had 
not circumstances existed which, in the judgment of others, rendered 
it expedient to defer the fulfilment of that purpose for the present. 

It is my expectation to be in New- York early in the week after next; 
and it will give me pleasure to meet the political friends who have ten- 
dered me this kind and respectful attention in any manner most agree- 
able to them. 

I pray you to accept for yourself, and the other gentlemen of the com- 
mittee, my highest regard. 

DANIEL WEBSTER. 

To D. B. Ogden, Esq., New- York. 

At a meeting of the committee, appointed under the above resolution, 
Philip Hone, Robert Smith, John W. Leavitt, Egbert Benson, Ira B. 
Wheeler, Caleb Barstow, Simeon Draper, Jr., and Wm. Samuel Johnson, 
Esqrs., were appointed a sub-committee, to make arrangements for the 
reception of Mr. Webster. The committee have corresponded with 
Mr. Webster, and ascertained that he will leave Philadelphia on the 
morning of Wednesday next — he will be met by the committee, and, on 
landing at Whitehall, at about 2 o'clock on Wednesday afternoon, 
will thence be conducted by the committee, accompanied by such other 
citizens as choose to join them, to a place hereafter to be designated. 
In the evening, at half past six o'clock, he will be addressed by the 
committee, in a public meeting of citizens, at Niblo's Saloon. 

D. B. OGDEN, Chairman. 

On the subsequent day, March 15th, the committee appointed for that 
purpose met Mr. Webster at Amboy, and accompanied him to the city, 
where he was met, on landing, by a very numerous assemblage of citi- 
zens, who thronged to see the distinguished senator, and give him a 
v,'arm welcome ; after landing, he was attended by the committee and a 
numerous cavalcade through Broadway, crowded with the most respect- 
able citizens, to lodgings provided for him at the American Hotel. Here 
he made a short address to the assembled citizens, and in the evening 
was accompanied by the committee to Niblo's Saloon. One of the lar- 
gest meetings ever held in the city of New- York assembled in the Sa- 
loon, and at half past six o'clock was called to order by Aaron Clark ; 
David B. Ogden was called to the chair as President of the meeting ; 
Robert C. Cornell, Jonathan Goodhue, Joseph Tucker, and Nathaniel 






JL * 



Weed "^^^Bleawnninated Vice-Presidents ; and Joseph Hoxie and Georg'e 
V S. Robbius Secretaries. 

■ "^ After the meeting was formed, Philip Hone introduced Mr. Webster 
with a few appropriate remarks, and he was received with the most en- 
thusiastic greetings. Mr. Ogden then delivered to him the following 
i,» ■ address : — 

" On behalf of a committee, appointed at a meeting of a number of 
your personal and political friends in this city, I have now the honour 
of addressing you. 

" It has afforded the committee, and, I may add, all your political friends, 
unmingled pleasure to learn that you have, at least for the present, re- 
linquished the intention which I know you had formed of resigning 
your seat in the Senate of the United States. While expressing their 
feelings upon this change in your determination, the committee cannot 
avoid congratulating the country that your public services are not yet 
to be lost to it, and that the great champion of the Constitution and of 
the Union is still to continue in the field, upon which he has earned so 
many laurels, and has so nobly asserted and defended the rights and lib- 
erties of the People. 

" The efforts made by you, and the honourable men with whom you 
have acted in the Senate, to resist executive encroachments upon the 
other departments of the government, will ever be remembered with 
gratitude by the friends of American liberty. That these efforts were 
not more successful, we shall long have reason to remember and regret. 
The administration of General Jackson is fortunately at an end. Its ef- 
fects upon the Constitution and upon the commercial prosperity of the 
country are not at an end. Without attempting to review the leading 
measures of his administration, every man engaged in business in New- 
York feels, most sensibly, that his experiment upon the currency has 
produced the evils which you foretold it Avould produce. It has brought 
distress, to an extent never before experienced, upon the men of enter- 
prise and of small capital, and has put all the primary power in the hands 
of a few great capitalists. 

" Upon the Senate our eyes and our hopes are fixed ; we know that 
you and your political friends are in a minority in that body, but wo 
know that in that minority are to be found great talents, great experi- 
ence, great patriotism, and we look fo^ great and continued exertions to 
maintain the Constitution, the Union, and the liberties of this people. And 
we take this opportunity of expressing our entire confidence, that what- 
ever men can do in a minority will be done in the Senate to relieve 
the country from the evils under which she is now labouring, and to 
save her from being sacrificed by folly, corruption, or usurpation. 

" It gives me, sir, pleasure to be the organ of the committee to ex- 
press to you their great respect for your talents, their deep sense of the 
importance of your public services, and their gratification to learn that 
you will still continue in the Senate." 

To this address Mr. Webster replied in the following 



SPEECH. 



**WE HAVE ONE COUNTRY— ONE CONSTITUTION 
—ONE DESTINY." 

Mr. Chairman, and Fellow-Citizens: — 

It would be idle in me to affect to be indifferent to the cir- 
cumstances under which I have now the honour of addressing you. 

I find myself in the Commercial Metropohs of the Continent, 
in the midst of a vast assembly of intelhgent men, drawn from 
ail the classes, professions, and pursuits of life. 

And you have been pleased, Gentlemen, to meet me, in this 
imposing manner, and to offer me a warm and cordial welcome to 
your city. I thank you. I feel the full force and importance 
of this manifestation of your regard. In tlie highly flattering res- 
olutions which invited me here, in the respectability of this vast 
multitude of my Fellow-Citizens, and in the approbation and 
hearty good-will which you have iiere manifested, I feel cause 
for profound and grateful acknowledgment. 

To every individiial of this meeting, therefore, I would now 
most respectfully make that acknowledgment ; and with every 
one, as if with hands joined in mutual greeting, I reciprocate 
friendly salutation, respect, and good wishes. 

But, Gentlemen, although I am well assured of your personal 
regard, I cannot fail to know that the times, the political and 
commercial condition of things which exists among us, and an 
intelligent spirit, awakened to new activity and a new degree of 
anxiety, have mainly contributed to fill these avenues and crowd 
the«e halls. At a moment of diflSculty and of much alarm, you 
come here, as Whigs of New-York, to meet one whom you sup- 
pose to be bound to you by common principles and common 
sentiments, and pursuing with you a common object. Gentle- 
men, I am proud to admit this community of our principles and 
this identity of our object. You are for the Constitution of the 
Country ; so am I. You are for the Union of the States ; so an* 
I. You are for equal laws, for the equal rights of all men, for 
constitutional and just restraints on power, for the substance and 
not the shadowy image only of popular institutions, for a Govern- 
ment which has liberty for its spirit and soul, as well as in its 
forms ; and so am I. You feel, that if in warm party times the 
Executive Power is in hands distinguished for boldness, for great 
giiccefis, for perseverance, and other qualities which strike men's 



minds stroHgly, there is danger of derangement of the Powers 
of Government, danger of a new division of those powers, in 
which the Executive is hkely to obtain the Lion's part ; and dan- 
ger of a state of things in which the more popular branches of 
the Government, instead of being guards and sentinels against 
any encroachments from the Executive, seek, rather, support from 
its patronage, safety against the complaints of the people in its 
ample and all-protecting favour, and refuge in its power ; and so 
I feel, and so I have felt, for eight long and anxious years. 

You believe that a very efficient and powerful cause, in the pro- 
duction of the evils which now fall on the industrious and com- 
mercial classes of the community, is the derangement of the cur- 
rency, the destruction of exchanges, and the unnatural and un- 
necessary misplacement of the specie of the country, by unau- 
thorized and illegal Treasury orders. So do I believe, I pre- 
dicted all this from the beginning, and from before the beginning. 
I predicted it all last spring, when that was attempted to be done 
by law which was afterward done by executive authority ; and 
from the moment of the exercise of that executive authority to the 
present time, I have both foreseen and seen the regular progress 
of things under it, from inconvenience and embarrassment, to 
pressure, loss of confidence, disorder, and bankruptcies. 

Gentlemen, I mean on this occasion to speak my sentiments 
freely on the great topics of the day. I have nothing to conceal, 
and shall therefore conceal nothing. In regard to political senti- 
ments, purposes, or objects, there is nothing in my heart which I 
am ashamed of ; I shall throw it all open, therefore, to you and to 
all men. [That is right, said some one in the crowd — let us have 
it — with no non-committal,] Yes, my friend (continued Mr. W.), 
without non-committal or evasion, without barren generalities or 
empty phrase, without if or but, without a single touch, in all I 
say, bearing the oracular character of an Inaugural, I shall on 
this occasion speak my mind plainly, freely, and independently, 
to men who are just as free to concur or not to concur in my 
sentiments as I am to utter them, I think you are entitled to 
hear my opinions freely and frankly spoken ; but I freely acknowl- 
edge that you are still more clearly entitled to retain and maintain 
your own opinions, however they may differ or agree with mine. 

It is true. Gentlemen, that I have contemplated the relinquish- 
ment of my seat in the Senate for the residue of the term, now 
two years, for which I was chosen. This resolution was not 
taken from disgust or discouragement, although some things have 
certainly happened which might excite both those feelings. But 
in popular governments, men must not suffer themselves to be 
permanently disgusted by occasional exhibitions of political 
harlequinism, or deeply discouraged, although their efforts to 
awaken the people to what they deem the dangerous tendency of 
public measures be not crowned with immediate success. It wa* 



altogether from other causes and other considerations, that, after 
an uninterrupted service of fourteen or fifteen years, I naturally 
desired a respite. But those whose opinions I am bound to re- 
spect saw objections to a present withdrawal from Congress; 
and I have yielded my own strong desire to their convictions of 
what the public good requires. 

Gentlemen, in speaking here on the subjects which now so 
much interest the community, I wish, in the outset, to disclaim 
all personal disrespect towards individuals. He whose character 
and fortune have exercised such a decisive influence on our poli- 
tics for eight years, has now retired from public station. I pur- 
sue him with no personal reflections, no reproaches. Between 
him and myself there has always existed a respectful personal 
intercourse. Moments have existed, indeed, critical and de- 
cisive upon the general success of his Administration, in which 
he has been pleased to regard my aid as not altogether unimpor- 
tant. I now speak of him respectfully as a distinguished sol- 
dier, as one who, in that character, has done the State much ser- 
vice ; as a man, too, of strong and decided character, of unsub- 
dued resolution and perseverance in whatever he undertakes. 
In speaking of his civil administration, I speak without censori- 
ousness or harsh imputation of motives ; I wish him health and 
happiness in his retirement ; but I must still speak as I think of 
his public measures, and of their general bearing and tendency, 
not only on the present interests of the country, but also on the 
well being and security of tlie Government itself. 

There are, however, some topics of a less urgent present ap- 
plication and importance, upon which I wish to say a few words 
before I advert to those which are more immediately connected 
with the present distressed state of things. 

My learned and highly valued friend (Mr. Ogden), who has 
addressed me in your behalf, has been kindly pleased to speak of 
my political career as being marked by a freedom from local in- 
terests and prejudices, and a devotion to liberal and comprehen- 
sive views of public policy. 

I will not say that this compliment is deserved. I will only 
say that I have earnestly endeavoured to deserve it. Gentlemen, 
the General Government, to the extent of its power, is national. 
It is not consolidated, it does not embrace all powers of Gov- 
ernment. On the contrary, it is delegated, restrained, strictly 
limited. 

But what powers it does possess, it possesses for the general, 
not for any partial or local good. It extends over a vast territory, 
embracing now six-and-twenty States, with interests various, but 
not irreconcilable, infinitely diversified, but capable of being 
all blended into political harmony. 

He, however, who would produce this harmony must survey 
the whole field, as if all parts were as interesting to himself as 



8 

they are. ^6 others, and with that generous patnotic feehng, 
prompter and better than the mere dictates of cool reason, whicli 
leads him to embrace the whole with affectionate regard, as con- 
stituting, altogether, that object which he is so much bound to 
respect, to defend, and to love — his Countr}'. We have around 
lis, and more or less within the influence and protection of the 
General Government, all the great interests of Agriculture, Nav- 
igation, Commerce, Manufactures, the Fisheries, and the Me 
chanic Arts. The duties of the Government, then, certainly ex- 
tend over all this territory, and embrace all these vast interests. 
We have a maritime frontier, a seacoast of many thousand miles ; 
and while no one doubts that it is the duty of Government to de- 
fend this coast by suitable military preparations, there are these 
who yet suppose that the powers of Government stop at this 
point; and that, as to works of peace and works of improvement, 
they are beyond our constitutional limits. I have ever thought 
otherwise. Congress has a right, no doubt, to declare war, and 
to raise armies and navies ; and it has necessarily the right to 
build fortifications and batteries, to protect the coast from the ef- 
fects of war. But Congress has authority also, and it is its duty 
to regulate Commerce, and it has the whole power of collecting 
duties on imports and tonnage. It must have ports and harbours, 
ind dockyards also, for its navies. Very early in the history of 
the Government, it was decided by Congress, on the report of a 
highly respectable committee, that the transfer by the States to 
Congress of the power of collecting tonnage and other duties, 
and the grant of the authority to regulate Commerce, charged 
Congress, necessarily, with the duty of maintaining such piers, 
and wharves, and lighthouses, and of making such improvements 
as might have been expected to be done by the States, if they 
had retained the usual means, by retaining the power of collect- 
ing duties on imports. The States, it was admitted, had parted 
with this power; and the duty of protecting and facihtating Com- 
merce by these means, had passed, along with this power, into 
other hands. I have never hesitated, therefore, when the stale 
of the Treasury would admit, to vote for reasonable appropria- 
tions for Breakwaters, Lighthouses, Piers, Harbours, and sim- 
ilar improvements on any part of the whole Atlantic Coast, or the 
Gulf of Mexico from Maine to Louisiana. 

But how stands the inland frontier? How is it along the 
vast lakes, and the mighty rivers of the North and West ? ])o 
our Constitutional rights and duties terminate when the water 
ceases to be salt? or do they exist in full vigour on the shores 
of these Inland Seas ? I never could doubt about this ; and yet, 
Gentlemen, I remember even to have participated in a warm de- 
bate in the Senate some years ago, upon the Constitutional right 
of Congress to make an appropriation for a Pier in the harbour 
of Buffalo. What 1 make a Harbour at Buffalo, where naturo 



never made any, and where, therefore, it was never ifttefided any 
ever should be made ? Take money from the people to run 
out piers from the sandy shores of Lake Erie, or deepen the 
channels of her shallow rivers ? Where was the Constitutional 
authority for this ? Where would such strides of power stop ? 
How long would the States have any power at all left, if their 
territory might be ruthlessly invaded for such unhallowed pur- 
poses, or how long would the people have any money in their 
pockets, if the Government of the United States might tax them 
at pleasure for such extravagant projects as these ? Piers, 
wharves, harbours, and breakwaters in the lakes ! These argu- 
ments, Gentlemen, however earnestly put forth heretofore, do not 
strike us with great power at the present day, if we stand on 
the shores of Lake Erie, and see hundreds of vessels, with valu- 
able cargoes, and thousands of valuable lives, moving on its 
waters, with few shelters from the storm but havens created or 
made useful by the aid of Government. These great lakes, 
stretching away many thousands of miles, not in a straight line, 
but with turns and deflexions, as if designed to reach, by water 
communication, the greatest possible number of important points, 
through a region of vast extent, cannot bvit arrest the attention of 
any one who looks upon the map. They lie connected, but va- 
riously placed ; and interspersed, as if with studied variety of 
form and direction, over that part of the country. They were 
made for man, and admirably adapted for his use and convenience. 
Looking, Gentlemen, over our whole country, comprehending in 
our survey the Atlantic coast, with its thick population, advanced 
agriculture, its extended commerce, its manufactures, and me- 
chanic arts, its varieties of communication, its wealth, and its 
general improvements ; and looking, then, to the interior, to the 
immense tracts of fresh, fertile, and cheap lands, bounded by so 
many lakes, and watered by so many magnificent rivers, let me 
ask if such a map was ever before presented to the eye of any 
statesman as the theatre for the exercise of his wisdom and pat- 
riotism ? And let me ask, too, if any man is fit to act a part on 
such a theatre who does not comprehend the whole of it within 
the scope of his policy, and embrace it all as his country ? 

Again, Gentlemen, we are one in respect to the glorious Con- 
stitution under which we live. We are all united in the great 
brotherhood of American Liberty. Descending from the same 
ancestors, bred in the same school, taught, in infancy, to imbibe 
the same general political sentiments, Americans all, by birth, 
education, and principle, what but a narrow mind, or woful igno- 
rance, or besotted selfishness, or prejudice ten times ten times 
blinded, can lead any of us to regard the citizens of any part of 
the country as strangers and aliens ? 

The solemn truth, moreover, is before us, that a common po- 
litical fate attends us all. 



) 



10 



Undef^e present Constitution, wisely and conscientiously ad- 
ministered, all are safe, happy, and renowned. The measure of 
our country's fame may fill all our breasts. It is fame enough 
for us all to partake in he?- glory, if we will carry her character 
onward to its true destiny. But if the system is broken, its frag- 
ments must fall alike on all. Not only the cause of American 
Liberty, but the grand cause of Liberty, throughout the whole 
earth, depends, in a great measure, on upholding the Constitution 
and Union of these States. If shattered and destroyed, no matter 
by what cause, the peculiar and cherished idea of United Ameri- 
can Liberty will be no more for ever. There may be free States, 
it is possible, when there shall be separate States. There may 
be many loose, and feeble, and hostile confederacies, where there 
is now one great and united confederacy. But the noble idea of 
United American Liberty, of our Liberty, such as our fathers 
established it, will be extinguished for ever. Fragments and 
severed columns of the edifice may be found remaining ; and mel- 
ancholy and mournful ruins will they be ; the augusr, temple it- 
self will be prostrate in the dust. Gentlemen, the citizens of this 
republic cannot sever their fortunes. A common fate awaits us. 
In the honour of upholding, or in the disgrace of undermining the 
Constitution, we shall all necessarily partake. Let us, then, stand 
by the Constitution as it is, and by our country as it is, one, 
united, and entire ; let it be a truth engraven on our hearts, let it 
be borne on the flag under which we rally in every exigency, 
that we have one Country, one Constitution, one Destiny. 

Gentlemen, of our interior administration, the public lands con- 
stitute a highly important part. This is a subject of great in- 
terest, and it ought to attract much more attention than it has 
hitherto received, especially from the people of the Atlantic States. 
The public lands are public property. They belong to the peo- 
ple of all the States. A vast portion of them is composed of ter- 
ritories, which were ceded, by individual States, to the United 
States, after the close of the Revolutionary War, and before the 
adoption of the present Constitution. The history of these ces- 
sions, and the reasons for making them, are famihar. Some of 
the Old Thirteen possessed large tracts of unsettled lands within 
their chartered limits. The Revolution had established their title 
to these lands , and as the Revolution had been brought about by 
the common treasure and the common blood of all the colonies, 
it was thought not unreasonable that these unsettled lands should 
be transferred to the United States, to pay the debt created by 
the war, and afterward to remain as a fund for the use of all the 
States. This is the well-known origin of the title possessed by 
the United States to lands northwest of the river Ohio. 

By Treaties with France and Spain, Louisiana and Florida, 
with many millions of acres of public unsold land, have been 
since acquired. The cost of these acquisitions was paid, of 



11 

course, by the General Government, and was thus a charge upon 
the whole people. The public lands, therefore, all and singular, 
are national property ; granted to the United States, purchased 
by the United States, paid for by all the People of the United 
States. 

The idea that when a new state is created, the public lands 
lying within her Territory become the property of such new 
State in consequence of her sovereignty, is too preposterous for 
serious refutation. Such notions have heretofore been advanced 
in Congress, but nobody has sustained them. They were re- 
jected and abandoned, although one cannot say whether they may 
not be revived, in consequence of recent propositions which have 
been made in the Senate. The new States are admitted on ex- 
press conditions, recognising, to the fullest extent, the right of 
the United States to the public lands within their borders ; and 
it is no more reasonable to contend that some indefinite idea of 
State sovereignty overrides all these stipulations, and makes the 
lands the property of the States, against the provisions and con- 
ditions of their own Constitution, and the Constitution of the 
United States, than it would be that a similar doctrine entitled the 
State of New- York to the moneys collected at the Custom House 
in this City ; since it is no more inconsistent with sovereignty 
that one Government should hold lands, for the purpose of sale, 
within the territory of another, than it is that it should lay and 
collect taxes and duties within such Territory. Whatever ex- 
travagant pretensions may have been set up heretofore, there 
was not, I suppose, an enlightened man in the whole West who 
insisted on any such right in the States, when the proposition to 
cede the lands to the States was made in the late session of 
Congress. The public lands being, therefore, the common prop- 
erty of all the people of all the States, I shall never consent to 
give them away to particular States, or to dispose of them other- 
wise than for the general good, and the general use of the whole 
Country. 

I felt bound, therefore, on the occasion just alluded to, to resist, 
at the threshold, a proposition to cede the public lands to the 
States in which they lie, on certain conditions. 

I very much regretted the introduction of such a measure, as 
its effect must be, I fear, only to agitate what was well settled, 
and to disturb that course of proceeding in regard to the public 
lands which forty years of experience have shown to be so wise 
and so satisfactory in its operation, both to the People of the old 
States and to those of the new. 

But, Gentlemen, although the public lands are not to be given 
away or ceded to particular States, a very liberal policy in regard 
to them ought undoubtedly to prevail. Such a policy has pre- 
vailed, and I have steadily supported it, and shall continue to sup- 
port it, so long as I may remain in public life. The main object 



12 

in regard to these lands is undoubtedly to settle them so fast as 
the growth of our population, and its augmentation by emigration, 
may enable us to settle them. 

The lands, therefore, should be sold at a low price, and, foi 
one, I have never doubted the right or expediency of granting 
portions of the lands themselves, or of making grants of money, 
for objects of Internal improvements connected with them. 

I have always supported liberal appropriations for the purpose 
of opening communications to and through these lands, by com- 
mon Roads, Canals, and Railroads ; and where lands of littU 
value have been long in market, and on account of their indiffer- 
ent quality are not likely to command the common price, I know 
no objection to a reduction of price, as to such lands, so that they 
may pass into private ownership. Nor do I feel any objections 
to remove those restraints which prevent the States from taxing 
the lands for five years after they are sold. But while in these 
and all other respects I am not only reconciled to a liberal policy, 
but espouse it and support it, and have constantly done so, I hold, 
still, the national domain to be the general property of the Country, 
confided to the care of Congress, and which Congress is solemnly 
bound to protect and preserve for the common good. 

The benefit derived from the public lands, after all, is and must 
be, in the greatest degree, enjoyed by those who buy them and 
settle upon them. The original price paid to Government con- 
stitutes but a small part of their actual value. Their immediate 
rise in value, in the hands of the settler, gives him competence. 
He exercises a power of selection over a vast region of fertile ter- 
ritory, all on sale at the same price, and that price an exceedingly 
low one. Selection is no sooner made, cultivation is no sooner 
begun, and the first furrow turned, than he already finds himself a 
man of property. These are the advantages of western emi- 
grants and western settlers; and they are such, certainly, as no 
country on earth ever before afforded to her Citizens. This op- 
portunity of purchase and settlement, this certainty of enhanced 
value, these sure means of immediate competence and ultimate 
wealth, all these are the rights and the blessings of the people of 
the West, and they have my hearty wishes for their full and perfect 
enjoyment. 

I desire to see the public lands cultivated and occupied. I 
desire the growth and prosperity of the West, and the fullest de- 
velopment of its vast and extraordinary resources. I wish to 
bring it near to us, by every species of useful communication. I 
see, not without admiration and amazement, but yet without envy 
or jealousy, states of recent origin already containing more peo- 
ple than Massachusetts. These people I know to be part of our- 
selves ; they have proceeded from the midst of us, and we may 
trust that they arc not likely to separate themselves, in interest or 
in feeling, from their kindred, whom they have left on the farms 
and around the hearths of their common fathers. 



13 

A liberal policy, a sympathy with its interests, an enlightened 
and generous feeling of participation in its prosperity, are due to 
the West, and will be met, I doubt not, by a return of sentiments 
equally cordial and equally patriotic 

Gentlemen, the general question of revenue is very much con- 
nected with this subject of the public lands, and I will therefore, 
in a very few words, express my opinions on that point. 

The revenue involves not only the supply of the Treasury 
with m.oney, but the question of protection to manufactures. On 
these connected subjects, therefore. Gentlemen, as I have prom- 
ised to keep nothing back, I will state my opinions plainly, but 
very shortly. 

I am in favour of such a revenue as shall be equal to all the just 
and reasonable wants of the government; and I am decidedly op- 
posed to all collection or accumulation of revenue beyond this 
point. An extravagant government expenditure and unnecessary 
accumulation in the Treasury are both, of all things else, to be 
most studiously avoided. 

I am in favour of protecting American industry and labour, not 
•only as employed in large manufactories, but also, and more es- 
pecially, as employed in the various mechanic arts, carried on by 
persons acting on small capitals, and living by the earnings of their 
own personal industry. Every City in the Union, and none more 
than this, would feel severely the consequences of departing from 
the ancient and continued policy of the Government respecting 
ihis last branch of protection, tf duties were to be abolished on 
hats, boots, shoes, and other articles of leather, and on the arti- 
cles fabricated of brass, tin, and iron, and on re^dy-made clothes, 
carriages, furniture, and many similar articles, thousands of per- 
sons would be immediately thrown out of employment in this 
City and in other parts of the Union. Protection in this respect, 
of our own labour, against the cheaper, ill paid, half fed, and pau- 
per labour of Europe, is, in my opinion, a duty which the Coun- 
try owes to its own citizens. I am, therefore, decidedly for pro- 
tecting our own industry and our own labour. 

In the next place, Gentlemen, I am of opinion, that with no 
more than usual skill in the application of the well-tried principles 
of discriminating and specific duties, all the branches of National 
Industry may be protected without imposing such duties on im- 
ports as shall overcharge the Treasury, 

And as to the Revenues arising from the sales of the public 
lands, I am of opinion that they ought to be set apart for the use 
of the States. The States need the money. The Government 
of the United States does not need it. Many of the States have 
contracted large debts for objects of Internal improvement ; and 
others of them have important objects which they would wish to 
accomplish. The lands were originally granted for the use of the 
several states ; and now that their proceeds are not necessary for 



14 

the purposes of the General Government, I am of opinion that 
tliey should go to the states, and to the people of the states, upon 
an equal principle. Set apart, then, the proceeds of the public 
lands for the use of the stales ; supply the Treasury from duties 
on imports ; apply to these duties a just and careful discrimination 
in favour of articles produced at home by our own labour, and 
thus support, to a fair extent, our own Manufactures. These, 
Gentlemen, appear to me to be the general outlines of that policy 
which the present condition of the country requires us to adopt. 

Gentlemen, proposing to express opinions on the principal sub- 
jects of interest at the present moment, it is impossible to over 
look the delicate question which has arisen from events which 
have happened in the late Mexican Province of Texas. The In- 
dependence of that Province has now been recognised by the 
Government of the United States. The Congress gave the 
President the means, to be used when he saw fit, of opening a 
<iiplomatic intercourse with its Government, and the late Presi- 
dent immediately made use of those means. 

I saw no objection, under the circumstances, to voting an 
appropriation to be used when the President should think the 
proper time had come ; and he deemed, certainly very promptly, 
that the time had already arrived. Certainly, Gentlemen, the 
history of Texas is not a little wonderful. A very few people, 
in a very short lime, have established a Government for them- 
selves against the authority of the parent State ; and which Gov- 
ernment, it is generally supposed, there is little probability at the 
present moment of the parent State being able to overturn. 

This Government is, in form, a copy of our own. It is an 
American Constitution, substantially after the great American 
model. We all, therefore^ must wish it success ; and there is 
no one who will more heartily rejoice than I shall, to see an in- 
dependent community, intelhgent, industrious, and friendly to- 
wards us, springing up, and rising into happiness, distinction, and 
power, upon our own principles of Liberty and Government. 

But it cannot be disguised, Gentlemen, that a desire, or an in- 
tention, is already manifested to annex Texas to the United States. 
On a subject of such mighty magnitude as this, and at a moment 
when the public attention is drawn to it, I should feel myself 
wanting in candour if I did not express my opinion ; since all 
must suppose that on such a question it is impossible I should 
he without some opinion. 

I sfiy then, Gentlemen, in all frankness, tliat I see objections, I 
think insurmountable objections, to the annexation of Texas to 
the United States. When the Constitution was formed, it is not 
•orobable that citlier its framers or the people ever looked to the 
admission of any States into the Union, except such as then already 
existed, and su-ch as should be formed out of territories then al 
«eady belonging to the United States. Fifteen yeais after the 



15 

adoption of the Constitution, however, the case of Louisiana arose. 
Louisiana was obtained by treaty with France, who had recently 
obtained it from Spain ; but the object of this acquisition, cer- 
tainly, was not mere extension of territory. Other great political 
interests were connected with it. Spain, while she possessed 
Louisiana, had held the mouths of the great rivers which rise in 
the Western States, and flow into the Gulf of Mexico. She 
had disputed our use of these rivers already ; and with a powerful 
nation in possession of these outlets to the sea, it is obvious that 
the commerce of all the West was in danger of perpetual vexa^ 
tion. The command of these rivers to the sea was, therefore^ 
the great object aimed at in the acquisition of Louisiana. But 
that acciuisition necessarily brought territory along with it, and 
three Slates now exist formed out of that ancient province. 

A similar policy, and a similar necessity, though perhaps not 
entirely so urgent, led to the acquisition of Florida. 

Now, no such necessity, no such policy, requires the annexa- 
tion of Texas. The accession of Texas to our territory is not 
necessary to the full and complete enjoyment of all which we al- 
ready possess. Her case, therefore, stands entirely different from 
that of Louisiana and Florida. There being, then, no necessity for 
extending the limits of the Union in that direction, we ought, I 
think, for numerous and powerful reasons, to be content with our 
present boundaries. 

Gentlemen, we all see that by whomsoever possessed, Texas 
is likely to be a slave-holding country ; and I frankly avow my 
entire unwillingness to do anything which shall extend the slavery 
of the African race on this Continent, or add other slave-holding 
States to the Union. When I say that I regard slavery in itself 
as a great moral, social, and political evil, I only use language 
which has been adopted by distinguished men, themselves citizens 
of slave-holding States. I shall do nothing, therefore, to favour 
or encourage its further extension. We have slavery already 
among us. The Constitution found it among us ; it recognised 
it, and gave it solemn guaranties. To the fall extent of these 
guaranties we are all boiuid, in honour, in justice, and by the 
Constitution. All the stipulations contained in the Constitution 
in favour of the slave-holding States which are already in the 
Union, ought to be fulfilled, and, so far as depends on me, shall 
be fulfilled, in the fulness of their spirit, and to the exactness 
of their letter. Slavery, as it exists in the Slates, is beyond the 
reach of Congress. It is a concern of the States themselves; 
they have never submitted it to Congress, and Congress has no 
rightful power over it. I shall concur, therefore, in no act, no 
measure, no menace, no indication of purpose, which shall inter- 
fere, or threaten to interfere, with the exclusive authority of the 
several States over the subject of Slavery, as it exists within 
their respective limits. All this appears to me to be matter of 
plain and imperative duty. 



16 



But when we come to speak of admitting new States, the sub- 
ject assumes an entirely different aspect. Our rights and our 
duties are then both different. ,•> . . 

The free States, and all the States, are then at liberty to ac- 
cept or to reject. When it is proposed to bring new members 
mto this political partnership, the old members have aright to say 
on what terms such new partners are to come in, and what they 
are to bring along with them. In my opinion, the people of the 
United States will not consent to bring a new, vastly extensive, 
and slave-holding country, large enough for half a dozen or a dozen 
States, into the Union. In my opinion, they ought not to consent 
to it Indeed, I am altogether at a loss to conceive what possible 
benefit any part of this country can expect to derive from such 
annexation. All benefit to any part is at least doubtful and un- 
certam ; the objections obvious, plain, and strong. On the gen- 
eral question of Slavery, a great portion of the community is al- 
ready strongly excited. The subject has not only attracted atten- 
tion as a question of pohtics, but it has struck a far deeper-toned 
chord It has arrested the religious feehng of the country ; it has 
taken strong hold on the consciences of men. He is a rash man, 
indeed, and little conversant with human nature, and especial y 
has he a very erroneous estimate of the character of the people 
of this country, who supposes that a feeling of this kind is to be 
trifled with or despised. It will assuredly cause itself to be re- 
soected It may be reasoned with, it may be made willing, 1 be- 
lieve it "is entirely willing, to fulfil all existing engagements, and 
all existing duties, to uphold and defend the Constitution, as it is 
established, with whatever regrets about some provisions which 
it does actually contain. But to coerce it into silence— to en- 
deavour to restrain its free expression, to seek to compress and 
confine it, warm as it is, and more heated as such endeavours 
would inevitably render it-should all this be attempted I know 
liothinff, even in the Constitution, or in the Union itself, which 
would not be endangered by the explosion which might loUow. 

I see, therefore, no pohtical necessity for the annexation ot 
Texas to the Union; no advantages to be derived from it ; and 
objections to it of a strong, and, in my judgment, decisive charac- 

^^'^i believe it to be for the interest and happiness of the whole 
Union to remain as it is, without diminution and without addition 
Gentlemen, I pass to other subjects. The rapid advancement 
of the Executive authority is a topic which has already been al- 

"l believe there is serious cause of danger from this source. 
1 believe the Power of the Executive has increased, is increas- 
ing, and ought now to be brought back within its ancient Consti- 
tuUonal limits. I have nothing to do with the motives which 
have led to those acts which I believe to have transcended the 



17 

boundaries of the Constitution. Good motives may always be 
assumed, as bad motives may always be imputed. Good inten- 
tions will always be pleaded for every assumption of power; but 
they cannot justify it, even if we were sure that they existed. It 
is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to 
ffuard the people against the dangers of good intention, real or 
pretended. When bad intentions are boldly avowed, the People 
will promptly take care of themselves. On tiie other hand, they 
will always be asked why they should resist or question that 
exercise of power which is so fair in its object, so plausible and 
patriotic in appearance, and which has the public good alone 
confessedly in view ? Human beings, we may be assured, will 
generally exercise power when they can get it ; and they will 
exercise it most undoubtedly in popular Governments, under 
pretences of public safety or high public interest. It may be 
very possible that good intentions do reaUy sometimes exist, 
when Constitutional restraints are disregarded. There are men 
in all ages who mean to exercise power usefully ; but who mean 
to exercise it. They mean to govern well ; but they mean to 
govern. They promise to be kind masters ; but they mean to be 
masters. They think there need be but little restraint upon 
themselves. Their notion of the public interest is apt to be 
quite closely connected with their own exercise of authority. 
They may not, indeed, always understand their own motives. 
The love of power may sink too deep in their hearts even for 
their own scrutiny, and may pass with themselves for mere pat- 
riotism and benevolence. 

A character has been drawn of a very eminent citizen of Mas- 
sachusetts of the last age, which, though I think it does not en- 
tirely belong to him, yet very well describes a certain class of 
public men. It was said of this distinguished son of Massachu- 
setts, that in matters of politics and government he cherished 
the most kind and benevolent feelings towards the whole Earth. 
He earnestly desired to see all nations well governed ; and, to 
bring about this happy result, he wished that the United States 
might govern the rest of the world ; that Massachusetts might 
govern the United States ; that Boston might govern Massachu- 
setts ; and as for himself, his own humble ambition would be sat- 
isfied by governing the little town of Boston. 

I do not intend. Gentlemen, to commit so unreasonable a tres- 
pass on your patience as to discuss all those cases in which I 
think Executive power has been unreasonably extended. I shall 
only allude to some of them, and, as being earliest in the order of 
lime, and hardly second to any other in importance, I mention 
the practice of removal from all offices, high and low, for opin- 
ion's sake, and on the avowed ground of giving patronage to the 
President ; that is to say, of giving him the power of influencing 
men's political opinions and political conduct by hopes and by 



1» 

fears addressed directly to their pecuniary interests. The great 
battle on this point was fought and was lost in the Senate of 
the United States, in the last session of Congress under Mr. 
Adams's administration. After General Jackson was known to 
be elected, and before his term of office began, many important 
offices became vacant by the usual causes of death and resigna- 
tion. Mr. Adams, of course, nominated persons to fill these 
vacant offices. But a majority of the Senate was composed of 
the friends of General Jackson ; and instead of acting on these 
nominations, and filling the vacant offices with ordinary prompt- 
itude, the nominations were postponed to a day beyond the 
fourth of March, for the purpose, openly avowed, of giving the 
patronage of the appointments to the President who was then, 
coming into office. And when the new President entered on his 
office, he withdrew these nominations, and sent in nominations of 
his own friends in their places. I was of opinion then, and am of 
opinion now, that that decision of the Senate went far to unfix the 
proper balance of the Government. It conferred on the President 
the power of rewards for party purposes or personal purposes 
without limit or control. It sanctioned, manifestly and plainly, 
that exercise of power which Mr. Madison had said would de- 
serve impeachment ; and it completely defeated one great object, 
which we are told the framers of the Constitution contemplated, 
in the manner of forming the Senate ; that is, that the Senate- 
might be a body, not changing with the election of a President, 
and therefore likely to be able to hold over him some check or 
restraint, in regard to bringing his own friends and partisans into 
povi^er with him, and thus rewarding their services to him at the 
public expense. 

The debates in the Senate on these questions were long-con- 
tinued and earnest. They were, of course, in secret session ; but 
the opinions of those members who opposed this course have 
all been proved true by the result. The contest was severe and 
ardent, as much so as any that I have ever partaken in ; and I 
have seen some service in that sort of warfare. 

Gentlemen, when I look back to that eventful moment, when 
I remember who those were who upheld this claim for Execu- 
tive power with so much zeal and devotion, as- well as with such 
great and splendid abilities ; and when I look ix)und now, and in- 
quire what has become of these gentlemen, where they have found 
themselves at last, under the power which they thus helped to 
establish ; what has become now of all their respect, trust, con- 
fidence, and attachment ; how many of them, indeed, have not 
escaped from being broken and crushed under the weight of the* 
wheels of that engine which they themselves set in motion, I feel 
that an edifying lesson may be read by those who, in the fresh- 
ness and fulness of party zeal, are ready to confer the most dan- 
gerous power, in the hope that they and their firiends may bask 



19 

in ils sunshine, while enemies only shall be withered by its 
frown. 

I will not go into the mention of names. I will give no enu- 
meration of persons ; but I ask you to turn your minds back and 
recollect who the distinguished men were who supported in the 
Senate General Jackson's administration for the two first years ; 
and I will ask you what you suppose they think now of that 
power and that discretion which they so freely confided to Ex- 
ecutive hands ? What do they think of the whole career of that 
administration, the commencement of which, and indeed the exist- 
ence of which, owed so much to their own great exertions ? 

In addition to the establishment of this power of unlimited and 
causeless removal, another doctrine has been put forth, more 
vague, it is true, but altogether unconstitutional, and tending to 
like dangerous results. In some loose, indefinite, and unknown 
sense, the President has been called the Representative of the 
whole American People. He has called himself so repeatedly ; 
and been so denominated by his friends a thousand times. Acts 
for which no specific authority has been found, either in the Con- 
stitution or the laws, have been justified on the ground that the 
President is the Representative of the whole American People. 
Certainly this is not Constitutional language. Certainly the 
Constitution nowhere calls the President the Universal Repre- 
sentative of the People. The Constitutional Representatives of 
the People are in the House of Representatives, exercising pow- 
ers of legislation. The President is an executive officer, ap- 
pointed in a particular manner, and clothed with prescribed and 
limited powers. It may be thought to be of no great consequence, 
that the President should call himself, or that others should call 
him, the sole Representative of all the People, although he has no 
such appellation or character in the Constitution. But, in these 
matters, words are things. If he is the People's Representative, 
and as such may exercise power without any other grant, what is 
the limit of that power ? And what may not an unlimited Rep- 
resentative of the People do ? 

"When the Constitution expressly creates Representatives as 
members of Congress, it regulates, defines, and limits their au- 
thority. 

But if the Executive Chief Magistrate, merely because he is 
the Executive Chief Magistrate, may assume to himself another 
character, and call himself the Representative of the whole Peo- 
ple, what is to limit or restrain this Representative power in his 
hands ? 

I fear. Gentlemen, that if these pretensions should be contin- 
ued and justified, we might have many instances of summary po- 
litical logic, such as I once heard in the House of Representa- 
tives. A gentleman, not now living, wished very much to vote 
for the establishment of a Bank of the United States, Bat he 



20 

had always stoutly denied the Constitutional power of Congress 
to create such a Bank. The country, however, was in a state of 
great financial distress, from which such an Institution, it was 
hoped, might help to extricate it ; and this consideration led the 
worthy member to review his opinions with care and delibera- 
tion. Happily, on such careful and dehberate review, he altered 
his former judgment. He came satisfactorily to the conclusion 
that Congress might incorporate a Bank. The argument which 
brought his mind to this result was short, and so plain and obvi- 
ous, that he wondered how he should so long have overlooked it. 
The power, he said, to create a Bank w'as either given to Con- 
gress or it was not given. Very welL If it was given, Congi-ess 
of course could exercise it ; if it was not given, the People still 
retained it, and, in that case. Congress, as the Representatives of 
the People, might, upon an emergency, make free to use it. 

Arguments and conclusions, in substance hke these. Gentle- 
men, will not be wanting, if men of great popularity, commanding 
characters sustained by pow^erful parties, and full of good inten- 
tions towards the public, may be permitted to call themselves the 
Universal Representatives of the People. 

But, Gentlemen, it is the currency, the currency of the Coun- 
try — it is this great subject, so interesting, so vital to all classes 
of the community, which has been destined to feel the most vio- 
lent assaults of Executive Power. The consequences are around 
us and upon us. Not unforeseen, not unforetold, here they come, 
bringing distress for the present, and fear and alarm for the future. 
If it be denied that the present condition of things has arisen 
from the President's interference with the Revenue, the first an- 
swer is, that when he did interfere, just such consequences were 
predicted. It was then said, and repeated, and pressed upon the 
public attention, that that interference must necessarily produce 
derangement, embarrassment, loss of confidence, and commercial 
distress. I pray you. Gentlemen, to recur to the debates of 1832, 
1833, and 1834, and then to decide whose opinions have proved 
to be correct. When the Treasury Experiment was first an- 
nounced, who supported and who opposed it ? Who warned the 
Countiy against it ? Who were they who endeavoured to stay 
the violence of party, to arrest the hand of Executive authority, 
and to convince the People that this Experiment was delusive ; 
that its object was merely to increase Executive Power, and that 
its effect, sooner or later, must be injurious and ruinous ? 

Gentlemen, it is fair to bring the opinions of political men to the 
test of experience. It is just to judge of them by their measures 
and their opposition to measures ; and for myself, and those po- 
litical friends with whom I have acted on this subject of the cur 
rency, I am ready to abide the test. 

But, before the subject of tlie currency, and its present most 
embarrassing state is discussed, I invite your attention, Gentle- 



21 

men, to the history of Executive proceedings connected with it. 
I propose to state to you a series of facts ; not to argue upon them, 
not to mystify them, not to draw any unjust inference from them ; 
but merely to state the case in the plainest manner as I under 
stand it. And I wish, Gentlemen, that in order to be able to dt 
this in the best and most convincing manner, I had the ability ot 
my learned friend (Mr. Ogden), whom you have all so oftec 
heard, and who states his case, usually, in such a manner that, 
when stated, it is already very well argued. 

Let us see. Gentlemen, what the train of occurrences has been 
in regard to our revenue and finances ; and when these occur- 
rences are stated, I leave to every man the right to decide for him- 
self whether our present difficulties have or have not arisen 
from attempts to extend the Executive authority. In giving this 
detail, I shall be compelled to speak of the late Bank of the 
United States, but I shall speak of it historically only. My 
opinion of its utility, and of the extraordinary ability and success 
with which its affairs were conducted for many years before the 
termination of its charter, is well known. I have often expressed 
it, and I have not altered it. But at present I speak of the Bank 
only as it makes a necessary part in the history of events which I 
wish now to recapitulate. 

Mr. Adams commenced his administration in March, 1825. 
He had been elected by the House of Representatives, and began 
his career as President under a strong and powerful opposition. 
From the very first day, he was warmly, even violently opposed 
in all his measures ; and this opposition, as we all know, continued 
without abatement, either in force or asperity, through his whole 
term of four years. Gentlemen, I am not about to say whether 
this opposition was well or ill founded, just or unjust. I only 
state the fact as connected with other facts. The Bank of the 
United States during these four years of Mr. Adams's administra- 
tion was in full operation. It was performing the fiscal duties 
enjoined on it by its charter ; it had established numerous offices 
— was maintaining a large circulation, and transacting a vast busi- 
ness in Exchange. Its character, conduct, and manner of admin- 
istration were all well known to the whole country. 

Now there are two or three things worthy of especial notice. 
One is, that during the whole of this heated political controversy, 
from 1825 to 1829, the Party which was endeavouring to produce 
a change of administration brought no charge of political inter- 
ference against the Bank of the United States. If anything, it 
was rather a favourite with the party generally. Certainly, the 
party, as a party, did not ascribe to it undue attachment to other 
parties, or to the then existing administration. 

Another important fact is, that during the whole of the same 
period, those who had espoused the cause of Gen. Jackson, and 
who sought to bring about a revolution under his name, did not 



22 

propose the deslruclion of the Bank or its discontinuance as one 
of the objects which were to be accomphshed by the intended 
revohition. Tiiey did not tell the country that the Bank was un- 
constitutional ; they did not declare it unnecessary ; they did not 
propose to get along without it when they should come into 
power themselves. ]f individuals entertained any such purposes, 
they kept them much to themselves. The party, as a party, 
avowed none such. A third fact, worthy of all notice, is, that 
during this period there was no complaint about the state of the 
currenc}^ either by the Country generally, or by the party then 
in opposition. 

In March, 1829, Gen. Jackson was inaugurated. He came in 
on professions of Reform. He announced reform of all abuses 
to be the great and leading object of his future administration ; and 
ni his inaugural address he pointed out the main subjects of this 
reform. But the Bank was not one of them. It was not said 
the Bank was unconstitutional. It was not said it was vmneces- 
sary or useless. It was not said that it had failed to do all that 
had been hoped or expected from it in regard to the currency. 

In March, 1829, then, the Bank stood well, very well, with the 
new administration. It was regarded, so far as appears, as entirely 
constitutional, free from political or party taint, and highly useful. 
It had, as yet, found no place in the catalogue of abuses to be re- 
formed. 

But, Gentlemen, nine months wrought a wonderful change. 
New lights broke forth before these months had rolled away ; 
and the President, in his message to Congress, in Dec, 1829, held 
very different language, and manifested very different purposes. 

Although the Bank had then five or six years of its charter un- 
expired, he yet called the attention of Congress very pointedly 
to the subject, and declared : — 

1. Tiiat the constitutionality of the Bank was well doubted by 
many ; 

2. That its utility or expediency was also well doubted ; 

3. That all must admit that it had failed in undertaking to es- 
tablish or maintain a sound and uniform currency ; and, 

4. That the true Bank for the use of the Government of the 
United Stales would be a Bank which should be founded on the 
revenues and credit of the Government itself. 

These propositions appeared to me, at the time, as very extra- 
ordinary, and the last one as very startling. A. Bank, founded on 
the revenue and credit of the Government, and managed and ad- 
ministered by the Executive, was a conception which 1 had sup- 
posed no man, holding the Chief Executive Power in his own 
hands, would venture to put forth. 

But the question now is, what had wrought this great change 
of feeling and of purpose in regard to the Bank ? What events 
had occurred, between March and December, that should have 



23 

caused the Bank, so constitutional, so useful, so peaceable, and 
so safe an institution in the first of these months, to start up into 
the character of a monster, and become so horrid and dangerous 
in the last ? 

Gentlemen, let us see what the events were which had inter 
vcned. 

Gen. Jackson was elected in December, 1828. His term was 
to begin in March, 1829. A session of Congress took place, 
therefore, between his election and the commencement of his ad- 
ministration. 

Now, Gentlemen, the truth is, that during this session, and a 
little before the commencement of the new administration, a dis- 
position was manifested by political men to interfere with the 
management of the Bank. Members of Congress undertook to 
nominate or recommend individuals as Directors in the Branches 
or offices of the Bank. They were kind enough, sometimes, to 
make out whole lists, or tickets, and to send them to Philadelphia, 
containing the names of those whose appointments would be sat- 
isfactory to Gen. Jackson's friends. Portions of the correspond- 
ence on these subjects have been published in some of the volu- 
minous reports and other documents connected w^lh the Bank, 
but perhaps have not been generally heeded or noticed. At first, 
the Bank merely declined, as gently as possible, complying with 
these and similar requests. But like applications began to show 
themselves from many quarters, and a very marked case arose as 
early as June, 1829. Certain members of the Legislature of 
New-Hampshire applied for a change in the Presidency of the 
Branch which was established in that State, A member of the 
Senate of the United States wrote, both to the Pres-ident of iht 
Bank and to the Secretary of the Treasury, strongly recommend- 
ing a change, and, in his letter to the Secretary, hinting very dis- 
tinctly at political considerations as the ground of the movement 
Other officers in the service of the Government took an interest 
in the matter, and urged a change ; and the Secretary himself 
WTOte to the Bank, suggesting and recommending it. The time 
had come, then, for the Bank to take its position. It did take it ; 
and, in my judgment, if it had not acted as it did act, not only would 
those who had the care of it been most highly censurable, but a 
claim would have been yielded to enlirely inconsistent with a 
government of laws, and subversive of the very foundations of 
Republicanism. 

A long correspondence between the Secretary" of the Treasury 
and the President of the Bank ensued. The Directors determined 
that they would not surrender either their rights or tiieir duties to 
the control or supervision of the Executive Government. They 
said they had never appointed Directors of their Branches on po- 
litical grounds, and they would not remove them on such grounds. 
They had avoided politics. They had sought /or men of business. 



capacity, fidelity, and experience in the management of pecuniary 
concerns. They owed duties, they said, to the Government, 
which they meant to perform, failiifully and impartially, under all 
administrations ; and they owed duties to the stockholders of the 
Bank, which required thetn to disregard political considerations 
in their appointments. This correspondence ran along into the 
fall of the year, and finally terminated in a stern and unanimous 
declaration, made by the Directors, and transmitted to the Secre- 
tary df the Treasury, that the Bank would continue to be inde- 
pendently administered, and that the Directors, once for all, re- 
fused to submit to the supervision of the Executive authority in 
any of its branches, in the appointment of local directors and 
agents. This resolution decided the character of the future. 
Hostility towards the Bank thenceforward became the settled 
policy of the Government; and the Message of December, 1829, 
was the clear announcement of that policy. If the Bank had ap- 
pointed those Directors thus recommended by members of Con- 
gress ; if it had submitted all its appointments to the supervision 
of the Treasury; if it had removed the President of the New- 
Hampshire Branch ; if it had, in all things, showed itself a com- 
plying, political party machine, instead of an independent institu- 
tion ; if it had done this, I leave all men to judge whether such an 
entire change of opinion, as to its constitutionality, its utility, and 
its good effects on the currency, would have happened between 
March and December. 

From the moment in which the Bank asserted its independence 
of Treasury control, and its elevation above mere party purposes, 
down to the end of its charter, and down even to the present day, 
it has been the subject to which the selectest phrases of party de- 
nunciation have been plentifully applied. 

But Congress manifested no disposition to establish a Treasury 
Bank. On the contrary, it was satisfied, and so was the country 
most unquestionably, with the Bank then existing. In the sum- 
mer of 1832, Congress passed an act for continuing the char- 
ter of the Bank by strong majorities in both Houses. In the 
House of Representatives, I think, two thirds of the members 
voted for the Bill. The President gave it his negative ; and as 
there were not two thirds of the Senate, though a large majority 
were for it, the Bill failed to become a law. 

But it was not enough that a continuance of the charter of tiie 
Bank was thus refused. It had the dcposite of the public money, 
and this it was entitled to by law for the few years which yet 
remained of its chartered term. But this it was determined it 
should not enjoy. At the commencement of the session of 
18.32-3, a grave and sober doubt was expressed by the Secretary 
of the Treasury, in his official comnnniication, whether the pub- 
lic moneys were safe in the custody of the Bank ! I confess, 
Gentlemen, when I look back to this suggestion, thus officially 



85 

made, so serious in its import, so unjust if not well founded, and 
«o greatly injurious to the credit of the Bank, and injurious, in- 
deed, to the credit of the whole country, I cannot but wonder that 
any man of intelligence and character should have been willing to 
make it. I read in it, however, the first lines of another chapter. 
I saw an attempt was now to be made to remove the Deposites, 
and such an attempt was made that very session. But Con- 
gress was not to be prevailed upon to accomplish the end by 
Its own authority. It was well ascertained that neither House 
would consent to it. The House of Representatives, indeed, at 
the heel of the session, decided against the proposition by a very 
large majority. 

The Legislative authority having been thus invoked and in- 
voked in vain, it was resolved to stretch farther the long arm of 
Executive power, and by that arm to reach and strike the victim. 
It so happened that I was in this city in May, 1833, and here 
learned from a very authentic source that the Deposites would 
be removed by the President's order ; and in June, as afterward 
appeared, that order was given. 

Now it is obvious. Gentlemen, that thus far the changes in our 
financial and fiscal system were effected, not by Congress, but by 
the Executive ; not by law, but by the will and the power of the 
President. Congress would have continued the charter of the 
Bank ; but the President negatived the Bill. Congress was of 
opinion that the Deposites ought not to be removed ; but the 
President removed them. Nor was this all. The public mon- 
eys being withdrawn from the custody which the law had provi- 
ded by Executive power alone, that same power selected the 
places for their future keeping. Particular Banks, existing under 
State charters, were chosen. With these, especial and particular 
arrangements were made, and the public moneys were deposited 
in their vaults. Henceforward these selected Banks were to op- 
erate on the revenue and credit of the Government ; and thus the 
original scheme, promulgated in the Annual Message of Decem- 
ber, 1829, was substantially carried into effect. Here were 
Banks chosen by the Treasury ; all the arrangements made with 
them made by the Treasury ; a set of duties prescribed to be 
performed by them to the Treasmy ; and these Banks were to 
hold the whole proceeds of the public revenue. In all this Con- 
gress had neither part nor lot. No law had caused the removal 
of the Deposites; no law had authorized the selection of Depos- 
ile State Banks ; no law had prescribed the terms on which the 
revenues should be placed in such Banks. From the beginning 
of the chapter to the end, it was all Executive Edict. And now, 
Gentlemen, I ask if it be not most remarkable, that in a country 
professing to be under a government of laws, such great and im- 
portant changes in one of its most essential and vital interests 
should be brought about without any change of law, without any 



26 

enactment of the Legislature whatever. Is such a power trusted 
to the Executive of any Government, in whicli the Executive is 
separated by clear and well-defined lines from the Legislative 
Department ? The currency of the country stands on the same 
general ground as the commerce of the country. Both arc inti- 
mately connected, and both are subjects of legal, not of Execu- 
tive regulation. 

It is worthy of notice, that the writers of the Federalist, in dis- 
cussing the powers which the Constitution conferred on the Pres- 
ident, made it matter of connnendation that it withdraws this 
subject altogether from his grasp. " He can prescribe no rules," 
say they, " concerning the commerce or currency of the coun- 
try." And so we have been all taught to think under all former 
administrations. But we have now seen that the President, and 
the President alone, does prescribe the rule concerning the cur- 
rency. He makes it and he alters it. He makes one rule for 
one branch of the revenue, and another rule for another. He 
makes one rule for the citizen of one State, and another for the 
citizen of another State. This, it is certain, is one part of the 
Treasury order of July last. 

But at last Congress interfered, and undertook to regulate the 
Deposites of the public Moneys. It passed the law of July, 1836, 
placing the subject under legal control, restraining the power of 
the Executive, subjecting the Banks to liabilities and duties on 
the one hand, and securing them against Executive favouritism on 
the other. But this law contained another important provision ; 
which was, that all the money in the Treasury, beyond what was 
necessary for the current expenditures of the Government, should 
be deposited with the States. This measure passed both Houses 
by very unusual majorities, yet it hardly escaped a veto. It ob- 
tained only a cold assent, a slow, reluctant, and hesitating ap- 
proval ; and an early moment was seized to array against it a 
long list of objections. But the law passed. The money in the 
Treasury, beyond the sum of five millions, was to go to the States ; 
it has so gone, and the Treasury for the present is relieved from 
the burden of a surplus. But now observe other coincidences. 
In the Annual Message of December, 1835, the President quoted 
the fact of the rapidly increasing sale of the Public Lands as 
proof of high national prosperity. He alluded to that subject, 
certainly, with much satisfaction, and apparently in something of 
the tone of exultation. There was nothing said about monopoly, 
not a word about speculation, not a word about over issues of 
paper to pay for the lands. All was prosperous, all was full of 
evidence of a wise administration of Government, all was joy and 
triumph. 

But the idea of a deposite or distribution of the surplus money 
with the people suddenly damped this effervescing happiness. 
The colour of the rose was gone, and everything now looked 



27 

gloomy and black. Now no more felicitation or congratulation 
on account of the rapid sales of the Public Lands ; no more of 
this most decisive proof of national prosperity and happiness. 
The Executive muse takes up a melancholy strain. She sings 
of monopolies, of speculation, of worthless paper, of loss both of 
land and money, of the multiplication of Banks, and the danger 
of paper issues ; and the end of the canto, the catastrophe, is, 
that lands shall be no longer sold but for gold and silver alone. 
The object of all this is clear enough. It was to diminish the in- 
come from, the Public Lands. But no desire for such a diminu- 
tion had been manifested so long as the money was supposed to 
be likely to remain in the Treasury. But a growing conviction 
that some other disposition must be made of the surplus awakened 
attention to the means of preventing that surplus. 

Towards the end of the last session, Gentlemen, a proposition 
was brought forward in Congress for such an alteration of the 
law as should admit payment for Public Lands to be made in 
nothing but gold and silver. The mover voted for his own prop- 
osition ; but I do not recollect that any other member concurred 
in the vote. The proposition was rejected at once ; but, as in 
other cases, that which Congress refused to do the Executive 
power did. Ten days after Congress adjourned, having had this 
matter before it, and having refused to act upon it by making any 
alteration in the existing laws, a Treasury order was issued com- 
manding the very thing to be done which Congress had been re- 
quested to do and had refused to do. Just as in the case of the 
removal of the Deposiles, the Executive power acted, in this case 
also, against the known, well-understood, and recently-expressed 
will of the Representatives of the People. There never has been 
a moment when the Legislative will would have sanctioned the 
object of that order. Probably never a moment in which any 
twenty individual members of Congress would have concurred in 
it. The act was done without the assent of Congress, and against 
the well-known opinion of Congress. That act altered the law 
of the land, or purports to alter it, against the well-known will of 
the law-making power. 

For one, I confess I see no authority whatever in the Consti- 
tution or in any law for this Treasury order. Those who have 
undertaken to maintain it have placed it on grounds not only 
different, but inconsistent and contradictory. The reason which 
one gives, another rejects ; one confutes what another argues 
With one it is the joint resolution of 1816 which gave the au- 
thority ; with another it is the law of 1820 ; with a third it is the 
general superintending power of the President ; and this last 
argument, since it resolves itself into mere power, without stop- 
ping to point out the sources of that power, is not only the short- 
est, but in truth the most just. He is the most sensible, as well 
as the most candid reasoner, in my opinion, who places this 



28 

Treasury order on the ground of the pleasure of the Executive,, 
and slops there. I regard the joint Resolution of 1816 as man- 
datory ; as prescribing a legal rule ; as putting this subject, in 
which all have so deep an interest, beyond the caprice, or the 
arbitrary pleasure, or the discretion of the Secretary of the Treas- 
ury. I believe there is not the slightest legal authority, either 
in that officer or in the President, to make a distinction, and to 
say that paper may be received for debts at the Custom House, 
but that gold and silver only shall be received at the Land Offices. 
And now for the sequel. 

At the commencement of the last session, as you know. Gen- 
tlemen, a Resolution was brought forward in the Senate for an- 
nulling and abrogating this order by Mr. Ewing, a gentleman of 
much intelligence, of sound principles, of vigorous and energetic 
character, whose loss from the service of the country I regard 
as a public misfortune. The Whig members all supported this 
Resolution, and all the members, I believe, with the exception 
of some five or six, were very anxious, in some way, to get rid of 
the Treasury Order. But Mr. Evving's Resolution was too di- 
rect. It was deemed a pointed and ungracious attack on Exec- 
utive policy. Therefore it must be softened, modified, qualified, 
made to sound less harsh to the ears of men in power, and to 
assume a plausible, polished, inoffensive character. It was ac- 
cordingly put into the plastic hands of friends of the Executive 
to be moulded and fashioned, so that it might have the effect of 
ridding the country of the obnoxious order, and yet not appear to 
question Executive infallibility. All this did not answer. The 
late President is not a man to be satisfied with soft words ; and 
he saw in the measure, even as it passed the two Houses, a sub- 
stantial repeal of the order. He is a man of boldness and de- 
cision ; and he respects boldness and decision in others. If you 
are his friend, he expects no flinching ; and if you are his ad- 
versary, he respects you none the less for carrying your opposi- 
tion to the full limits of honourable warfare. Gentlemen, I most 
sincerely regret the course of the President in regard to this bill, 
and certainly most highly disapprove it. But I do not suffer the 
mortification of having attempted to disguise and garnish it, in 
order to make it acceptable, and of still finding it thrown back 
in my face. All that was obtained by this ingenious, diplomatic, 
and overcourteous mode of enacting a law, was a response from 
the President and the Attorney General that the Bill in question 
was obscure, ill-penned, and not easy to be understood. The 
Bill, therefore, was neither approved nor negatived. If it had 
been approved, the Treasury order would have been annulled, 
though in a clumsy and objectionable manner. If it had been 
negatived and returned to Congress, no doubt it would have been 
passed by two thirds of both Houses, and in that way become a 
law, and abrogated the order. But it was not approved, it was 



29 

not returned ; it was retained. It had passed the Senate in sea- 
son ; it had been sent to the House in season ; but there it was 
suffered to he so long without being called up, that it was com- 
pletely in the power of the President when it finally passed that 
body ; since he is not obliged to return Bills which he does not 
approve, if not presented to him in ten days before the end of the 
Session. The Bill was lost, therefore, and the Treasury order 
remains in force. Here again the Representatives of the People, 
in both Houses of Congress, by majorities almost unprecedented, 
endeavoured to abolish this obnoxious order. On hardly any sub- 
ject, indeed, has opinion been so unanimous, either in or out of 
Congress. Yet the order remains. 

And now, Gentlemen, I ask you, and I ask all men who have 
not voluntarily surrendered all power and all right of thinking for 
themselves, whether, from 1832 to the present moment, the Exec- 
utive authority has not effectually superseded the power of Con- 
gress, thwarted the will of the Representatives of the People, 
and even of the People themselves, and taken the whole subject 
of the currency into its own grasp ? In 1832, Congress desired 
to continue the Bank of the United States, and a majority of the 
People desired it also ; but the President opposed it, and his will 
prevailed. In 1833, Congress refused to remove the Deposites ; 
the President resolved upon it, however, and his will prevailed. 
Congress has never been willing to make a Bank, founded on the 
money and credit of the Government, and administered, of course, 
by Executive hands ; but this was the President's object, and he 
attained it in a great measure by the Treasury selection of De- 
posite Banks. Ift this particular, therefore, to a great extent, his 
will prevailed. In 1836, Congress refused to confine the receipts 
for public lands to gold and silver ; but the President willed it, 
and his will prevailed. In 1837, both Houses of Congress, by 
more than two thirds, passed a Bill for restoring the former state 
of things by annulling the Treasury order ; but the President 
willed, notwithstanding, that the order should remain in force, and 
his will again prevailed. I repeat the question, therefore, and I 
would put it earnestly to every intelligent man, to every lover of 
our Constitutional liberty — are we under the dominion of the 
Law ? or has the effectual government of the Country, at least in 
all that regards the greatest interest of the currency, been in a 
single hand ? 

Gentlemen, I have done with the narrative of events and meas- 
ures. I have done with the history of these successive steps in 
the progress of Executive power towards a complete control ovet 
the revenue and the currency. 

The result is now all before us. These pretended reformsi 
these extraordinary exercises of power from an extraordinary zed 
for the good of the People — what have they brought us to ?' 

In 1829, the currency was declared to be neither sound n(A 



30 

uniform ; a proposition, in my judgment, altogether at variance 
with the fact, because I do not beheve there ever was a country, 
of equal extent, in which paper formed any part of the circulation, 
that possessed a currency so sound, so uniform, so convenient, 
and so perfect in all respects, as the currency of this Country, at 
the moment of the delivery of that message in 1829. 

But how is it now ? Where has the improvement brought it? 
What has reform done ? What has the great cry for hard money 
accomplished ? Is the currency uniform now ? Is money in 
New-Orleans now as good, or nearly so, as money in New-York ? 
Are exchanges at par, or only at the same low rates as in 1829 
and other years ? Every one here knows that all the benefits of 
this experiment are but injury and oppression ; all this reform 
but aggravated distress. 

And as to the soundness of the currency, how does that stand ? 
Are the causes of alarm less now than in 1829? Is there less 
Bank paper in circulation ? Is there less fear of a general catas- 
trophe ? Is property more secure, or industry more certain of 
its reward ? We all know. Gentlemen, that during all this pre- 
tended warfare against all Banks, Banks have vastly increased. 
Millions upon millions of Bank paper have been added to the cir- 
culation. Everywhere, and nowhere so much as where the pres- 
ent administration and its measures have been most zealously 
supported. Banks have multiplied under State authority, since the 
decree was made that the Bank of the United States should be 
suffered to expire. Look at Mississippi, Missouri, Louisiana, 
Virginia, and other States. Do we not see that Banking capital 
and Bank paper are enormously increasing ? The opposition to 
Banks, therefore, so much professed, whether it be real or whether 
it be but pretended, has not restrained either their number or their 
issues of paper. Both have vastly increased. 

And now a word or two. Gentlemen, upon this hard money 
scheme, and the fancies and the delusions to which it has given 
birth. Gentlemen, this is a subject of delicacy, and one which it 
is difficult to treat with sufficient caution in a popular and occa- 
sional address like this. I profess to be a buUionist, in the usual 
and accepted sense of that word. I am for a solid specie basis 
for our circulation, and for specie as a part of the circulation, so 
far as it may be practicable and convenient. I am for giving no 
value to paper merely as paper. I abhor paper; that is to say, 
irredeemable paper, paper that may not be converted into gold or 
silver at the will of the holder. But while I hold to all this, I 
believe also that an exclusive gold and silver circulation is an 
utter impossibility in the present state of this country and of tho 
world. We shall none of us ever see it ; and it is credulity and 
folly, in my opinion, to act under any such hope or expectation. 
The States will make Banks, and these will issue paper ; and the 
longer the Government of the United States neglects its duty in 



31 

regard to measures for regulating the currency, the greater will 
be the amount of Bank paper overspreading the country. Of 
this I entertain not a particle of doubt. 

While I thus hold to the absolute and indispensable necessity 
of gold and silver as the foundation of ovu- circulation, I yet think 
nothing more absurd and preposterous than unnatural and strained 
eiforts to import specie. There is but so much specie in the 
world, and its amount cannot be greatly or suddenly increased. 
Indeed, there are reasons for supposing that its amount has re- 
cently diminished by the quantity used in manufactures, and by 
the diminished products of the mines. The existing amount of 
specie, however, must support the paper circulations, and the 
systems of currency, not of the United States only, but of other 
nations also. One of its great uses is to pass from country to 
country, for the purpose of settling occasional balances in com- 
mercial transactions. It always finds its way naturally and easily 
to places where it is needed for these uses. But to take extraor- 
dinary pains to bring it where the course of trade does not bring it, 
where the state of debt and credit does not require it to be, and then 
to, endeavour, by unnecessary and injurious regulations. Treasury 
orders, accumulations at the Mint, and other contrivances, there to 
retain it, is a course of policy bordering, as it appears to me, on po- 
litical insanity. It is boasted that we have seventy-five or eighty 
mihions of specie now in the country. But what more senseless, 
what more absurd than this boast, if there is a balance against 
us abroad, of which payment is desired, sooner than remittances 
of our own products are likely to make that payment ? What 
more miserable than to boast of having that which is not ours — 
which belongs to others, and which the convenience of others, 
and our own convenience also, requires that they should possess ? 
If Boston were in debt to New-York, would it be wise in Boston, 
instead of paying its debt, to contrive all possible means of ob- 
taining specie from the New-York Banks, and hoarding it at 
home ? And yet this, as I think, would be precisely as sensible 
as the course which the Government of the United States at 
present pursues. We have, without all doubt, a great amount of 
specie in the country, but it does not answer its accustomed end, 
it does not perform its proper duty. It neither goes abroad to 
settle balances against us, and thereby quiet those who have de- 
mands upon us ; nor is it so disposed of at home as to sustain 
the circulation to the extent which the circumstances of the times 
require. A great part of it is in the Western Banks, in the Land 
Offices, on the roads through the Wilderness, on the passages 
over the Lakes, from tlie Land Offices to the Deposite Banks, 
and from the Deposite Banks back to the Land Offices. Another 
portion is in the hands of bu)''ers and sellers of specie ; of 
men in the West, who sell Land Office money to the new settlers 
for a high premium. Another portion, again, is kept in private 



32 

hands, to be used wlien circumstances shall tempt to the purchase 
of lands. And, Gentlemen, I am inclined to think, so loud has 
been the cry about hard money, and so sweeping the denuncja- 
tion of all paper, that private holding or hoarding prevails to 
some extent in different parts of the Country. These eighty 
millions of specie, therefore, really do us little good. We are 
weaker in our circulation ; I have no doubt our credit is feebler ; 
money is scarcer with us at this moment than if twenty millions 
of this specie were shipped to Europe, and general confidence 
thereby restored. 

Gentlemen, I will not say that some degree of pressure might 
not have come upon us if the Treasury order had not issued. I 
will not say that there has not been overtrading, and overpro- 
duction, and a too great expansion of Bank circulation. This 
may all be so, and the last-mentioned evil, it was easy to foresee, 
was likely to happen, when the United States discontinued their 
own Bank. But what I do say is, that acting upon the state of 
things as it actually existed and is now actually existing, the 
Treasury order has been, and now is, productive of great distress. 
It acts upo« a state of things which gives extraordinary force to 
its stroke and extraordinary point to its sting. It arrests specie, 
when the free use and circulation of specie are most important ; 
it cripples the Banks, at a moment when the Banks, more than 
ever, need all their means. It makes the merchant unable to 
remit, when remittance is necessary for his own credit, and for 
the general adjustment of commercial balances. I am not now 
discussing the general question whether prices must not come 
down, and adjust themselves anew to the amount of bullion ex- 
isting in Europe and America ; I am dealing only with the 
measures of our own Government on the subject of the currency, 
and I insist that these measures have been most vmfortunate and 
most ruinous on the ordinary means of our circulation at home, 
and on our ability of remittance abroad. 

Their effects, too, by deranging and misplacing the specie 
which is in the country, are most disastrous on domestic ex- 
changes. Let him who has lent an ear to all these promises of 
a more uniform currency see how he can now sell his draught on 
New-Orleans or Mobile. Let the Northern manufacturers and 
meclianics, those who have sold the products of their labour to 
tlic South, and heretofore realized the prices, with little loss of 
exchange, let them try present facilities. Let them see what re- 
form of the currency has done for them. Let them inquire 
whether in this respect their condition is better or worse than it 
was five or six years ago. 

Gentlemen, I hold this disturbance of the measure of value and 
the means of payment and exchange, this derangement, and, if 1 
may so say, this violation of the currency, to be one of the most 
unpardonable of political faults. He who tampers with the cur- 



83 

rency robs labour of its bread. He panders, indeed, to greedy 
capital, which is keen-sighted, and may shift for itself; but he 
beggars labour, which is honest, unsuspecting, and too busy with 
the present to calculate for the future. The prosperity of the 
working classes lives, moves, and has its being in established 
credit and a steady medium of payment. All sudden changes 
destroy it. Honest industry never comes in for any part of the 
spoils in that scramble which takes place when the currency of 
a country is disordered. Did wild schemes and projects ever 
benefit the industrious ? Did irredeemable Bank paper ever en- 
rich the laborious ? Did violent fluctuations ever do good to him 
who depends on his daily labour for his daily bread ? Certainly 
never. All these things may gratify greediness for sudden gain, 
or the rashness of daring speculation ; but they can bring nothing 
but injury and distress to the homes of patient industry and honest 
labour. Who are they that profit by the present state of things ? 
They are not the many, but the few. They are speculators, 
brokers, dealers in money, and lenders of money at exorbitant 
interest. Small capitalists are crushed, and their means, being 
dispersed, as usual, in various parts of the country, and this mis- 
erable policy having destroyed exchanges, they have no longer 
either money or credit. And all classes of labour partake, and 
must partake, in the same calamity. And what consolation for 
all this is it, that the public lands are paid for in specie ? That 
whatever embarrassment and distress pervade the country, the 
Westei-n wilderness is thickly sprinkled over with eagles and dol- 
lars ? That gold goes weekly from Milwankie and Chicago to 
Detroit, and back again from Detroit to Milwaukie and Chicago, 
and performs similar feats of egress and regress, in many other 
instances, in the Western States ? It is remarkable enough, that 
with all this sacrifice of general convenience, with all this sky- 
rending clamour for government payments in specie, Government, 
after all, never gets a dollar. So far as I know, the United States 
have not now a single specie dollar in the world. If they have, 
where is it ? The gold and silver collected at the Land Offices 
is sent to the Deposite Banks ; it is there placed to the credit of 
the Government, and thereby becomes the property of the Bank. 
The whole revenues of the Government, therefore, after all, con- 
sists in mere Bank credits; that very sort of security which the 
friends of the administration have so much denounced. 

Remember, Gentlemen, in the midst of this deafening din 
against all Banks, that if it shall create such a panic or such 
alarm as shall shut up the Banks, it will shut up the Treasury 
of the United States also. 

Gentlemen, I would not willingly be a prophet of ill. I most 
devoutly wish to see a better state of things ; and I believe the 
repeal of the Treasury order would tend very much to bring 
about that better state of things. And I am of opinion, Gentle- 



34 

men, ihat llie order will be repealed. I think it must be repealed. 
I think the East, West, North, and South will demand its repeal. 
But, Gentlemen, I feel it my duty to say, that. if 1 should be dis- 
appointed in this expectation, I see no immediate relief to the 
distresses of the community. I greatly fear, even, that the worst 
is not yet. I look for severer distresses ; for extreme difficulties 
in exchange ; for far greater inconveniences in remittance, and 
for a sudden fall in prices. Our condition is one which is not to 
be tampered with ; and the repeal of the Treasury order being 
something which Government can do, and which will do good, the 
public voice is right in demanding that repeal. It is true, if re- 
pealed now, the relief will come late. Nevertheless, its repeal 
or abrogation is a thing to be insisted on and pursued till it shall 
be accomplished. This Executive control over the currency, 
this power of discriminating by Treasury order between one 
man's debt and another man's debt, is a thing not to be endured 
in a free country ; and it should be the constant, persisting de- 
mand of all true Whigs — " rescind the illegal Treasury order ; 
restore the rule of the law ; place all branches of the Revenue 
on the same grounds ; make men's rights equal ; and leave the 
Government of the Country where the Constitution leaves it, in 
the hands of the Representatives of the People in Congress." 
This point should never be surrendered or compromised. What- 
ever is established, let it be equal, and let it be legal. Let men 
know to-day what money may be required of them to-morrow. Let 
the rule be open and public on the pages of the Statute Book, not 
a secret in the Executive breast. 

Gentlemen, in the session which has now just closed, I have 
done my utmost to effect a direct and immediate repeal of the 
Treasury order. 

I have voted for a Bill, anticipating the payment of the French 
and Neapolitan Indemnities by an advance from the Treasury. 

I have voted with great satisfaction for the restoration of duties 
on goods destroyed in the great conflagration in this City. 

I have voted for a depositc wath the States of the surplus 
which may be in the Treasury at the end of the year. All these 
measures have failed ; and it is for you, and for our fellow-citi- 
zens throughout the country, to decide whether the public inter- 
est would or would not have been promoted by their success. 

But I find. Gentlemen, that I am committing an unpardonable 
trespass on your indulgent patience. I will pursue these remarks 
no further. And yet I cannot persuade myself to take leave of 
you without reminding you, with the utmost deference and respect, 
of the important part assigned to you in the political concerns of 
your country, and of the great influence of your opinions, your 
example, and your efforts upon the general prosperity and hap- 
piness. 

Whigs of-New-York ! Patriotic Citizens of this great metrop- 



35 

olis ! Lovers of Constitutional Liberty, bound by interest and 
by affection to the Institutions of your Country, Americans in 
heart and in principle ! — You are ready, I am sure, to fulfil all 
the duties imposed upon you by your situation, and demanded of 
you by your country. You have a central posifion ; your City 
is the point from which intelligence emanates, and spreads in all 
directions over the whole land. Every hour carries reports of 
your sentiments and opinions to the verge of the Union. You 
cannot escape the responsibility which circumstances have thrown 
upon you. You must live and act on a broad and conspicuous the- 
atre, either for good or for evil to your country. You cannot shrink 
away from your public duties ; you cannot obscure yourselves, 
nor bury your talent. In the common welfare, in the common 
prosperity, in the common glory of Americans, you have a stake, 
of value not to be calculated. You have an interest in the pres- 
ervation of the Union, of the Constitution, and of the true prin- 
ciples of the Government, which no man can estimate. You act 
for yourselves, and for the generations that are to come after you ; 
and those who, ages hence, shall bear your names and partake 
your blood, will feel in their political and social condition the con- 
sequences of the manner in which you discharge your political 
duties. 

Having fulfilled, then, on your part and on mine, though feebly 
and imperfectly on mine, the offices of kindness and mutual re- 
gard required by this occasion, shall we not use it to a higher and 
nobler purpose ? Shall we not by this friendly meeting refresh 
our patriotism, rekindle our love of Constitutional Liberty, and 
strengthen our resolutions of public duty ? Shall we not, in all 
honesty and sincerity, with pure and disinterested love of Coun- 
tiy, as Am.ericans, looking back to the renown of our ancestors, 
and looking forward to the interests of our posterity, here, to-night, 
pledge our mutual faith to hold on to the last to our professed 
principles, to the doctrines of true liberty, and to the Constitution 
of the Country, let who will prove true or who will prove recre- 
ant ? Whigs of New-York ! I meet you in advance, and give 
you my pledge for my own performance of these duties, without 
qualification and without reserve. Whether in public life or in 
private life, in the Capitol or at home, I mean never to desert 
them. I mean never to forget that I have a country, to w^hich I 
am bound by a thousand ties ; and the stone which is to lie on 
the ground that shall cover me shall not bear the name of a son 
ungrateful to his native land. 



THE END. 



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